


Bringing Back the Bodies

by xxSparksxx



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/M, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 22:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15082667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxSparksxx/pseuds/xxSparksxx
Summary: They are both on the table, Sam and Drake, side by side in death as in life. They’ll be buried side by side too, Ross thinks. In the Poldark section of the graveyard, though they did not bear the name. Demelza’s brothers close to her daughter. So much loss in her life.Spoilers for 4.01.





	Bringing Back the Bodies

**Author's Note:**

> So...this happened. 
> 
> An angsty character study of Ross, wrapped in the ‘what if’ of ‘what if he couldn’t save Sam and Drake from hanging in 4.01?’.
> 
> One-shot. Thanks to mmmuse for the beta-read.

They bring the bodies back together, in one cart. Jago Martin, Sam and Drake Carne. Ross sends a message to Killewarren before they even leave Truro; a rider on horse will reach there far before he and Zacky, in the wagon, can reach Sawle. He needs Dwight, needs Dwight’s steady support, both as his friend and as a doctor. Zacky Martin is distraught, still weeping beside Ross on the wagon seat, but it’s not for Zacky that Ross feels the need to send for a doctor.

They lay Jago out in Zacky’s home, and then Ross goes on to Nampara. Prudie meets him at the gate. He doesn’t need to say a word; his face tells her everything. She starts to cry, and he can’t find it within himself to stop her.

“Where is she?” he asks. Prudie shakes her head. 

“Not back yet,” she says. Ross stares blankly for a few moments, and then, belatedly, remembers that she’d gone to Tregothnan with Dwight and Caroline. Gone to see Hugh. Oh God, he thinks despairingly, she will never forgive me for this, and I’ve brought it on myself, and I don’t _deserve_ to be forgiven anyway. If good intentions counted for anything…but they don’t. His good intentions are useless. His brothers-in-law are dead. Two young men, snuffed out because his plea for clemency had fallen on deaf ears.

“The children?” he asks at last. He can hear them, somewhere about. In the kitchen, perhaps. “Keep them away from – from here,” he tells Prudie. “They mustn’t see this.” She nods, turns and scurries away. Ross looks at the two shrouded bodies in the cart, and tries to think what to do. They should be laid out – in the parlour, where his mother had once been laid out, and his brother – but he can’t lift them alone. The bodies are stiffening and will be awkward to carry, and deserve more respect than to be heaved over his shoulder and knocked against the doorframes.

One of the children starts to cry. He can hear it faintly, a thin, high-pitched wail. Clowance, he thinks. Prudie’s tears must have upset her. He should go in and comfort her, his little daughter, but he can’t bring himself to move. He is frozen in place, staring down at the bodies. He has no idea how he will break this news to Demelza. The bodies should be laid out before she sees them, cleaned and tended to, but he has no idea when she will return.

A hand lands on his shoulder. Ross jumps, startled, and Dwight grips him a little tighter.

“I’m so sorry, Ross,” he says. “Both of them?” Ross nods. “How has Demelza taken it?” Dwight asks. 

“I thought she would be with you,” Ross frowns. “Did she not come back from Tregothnan with you and Caroline?”

“She did,” Dwight confirms. “She left us nearly an hour ago – she’s not returned?” He turns, glances around. Ross stares at the house, the barn, the stables, as if he can summon Demelza from one of them by willpower alone. “Where could she have gone?” Dwight murmurs.

Ross speaks before he is sensible of the impulse. “Perhaps to Hugh,” he says dully, without bitterness. Dwight swings back around to look at him, a hard look that sees all. Then he shakes his head, and gives Ross’s shoulder a gentle shake too.

“No,” he says. “Whatever there may have been between them before, it was not there today. She was not comfortable or happy.” Ross is silent, and then he nods. Dwight would not lie to him, not even to spare his feelings. “Come, we must get them inside,” Dwight tells him. “She doesn’t need to see them like this. Wherever she is now, let’s at least make them…” Presentable, he doesn’t say. Ross grimaces. There is only so much that hot water and soap can do. They can remove the urine and excrement, they can strip the bodies of their clothes and put them in proper, clean shrouds, but dead is dead. Nothing can undo that. Nothing can make that more presentable, especially to their sister.

Their sister. Ross sways, staggering a step before he can catch himself. Perhaps Prudie was right, perhaps he should have told Demelza, but he knows his wife. She would have insisted on coming. Hard enough for Ross to watch; it would have destroyed her to see it. And now he will have to tell her. Now he will have to bear her hatred as well as her grief.

“Easy,” Dwight murmurs. “Easy, Ross.”

One by one, they carry the bodies into the house. Sam first, then Drake. Prudie keeps the children in the kitchen, but she has heated a kettle of water and has a basin and cloths ready when Ross goes in search of them. He can’t speak to thank her, but he nods acknowledgement. The children are seated at the table, playing with pastry. Clowance forms it into lumps and builds towers; Jeremy is trying to shape little pies, the way he’s seen his mother do it. He kisses each of them, but can’t say anything to them. His throat is too clogged with grief. Clowance is fretful, wanting to be held. Jeremy looks at Ross with eyes that see too much for such a young boy, and he hurries away from the kitchen before the perspicacious child can say anything. Jeremy is very fond of his uncles. _Was_ fond of them. Ross doesn’t know how to tell him that Uncle Drake and Uncle Sam will not be coming to play with him again.

Dwight has stripped the bodies by the time Ross returns to the parlour. They are both on the table, Sam and Drake, side by side in death as in life. They’ll be buried side by side too, Ross thinks. In the Poldark section of the graveyard, though they did not bear the name. Demelza’s brothers close to her daughter. So much loss in her life. Her nature is so pliant, bending before each storm but refusing to break, but Ross is afraid this blow will shatter her. There have been too many storms; even the most deep-rooted of trees has its breaking point. His fault. All his fault. At least she didn’t see them hang, at least she was spared that sight. 

“You take Drake,” he says to Dwight. He can’t bear the thought of washing the body of his younger brother-in-law, the one in whom he had always seen so much of Demelza’s spirit. It would be too much like washing – he pushes the thought away before it can fully form. No. Not that. Never that. He picks up a cloth and begins to wipe down Sam’s cold body, methodically and with as much detachment as he can muster. 

They work in silence. There is nothing to say. Ross is full of bitterness and anger and fear. He listens, constantly, for the familiar sprightly step in the hallway outside. They’ve closed the parlour door, in case the children escape Prudie’s clutches, but that means there’s less chance of hearing Demelza approach, so he listens hard and works as quietly as he can. 

There are deep marks around Sam’s neck, and his wrists. Drake’s, too. No amount of washing will ever clean those marks away. It’s worse on Sam. Drake’s neck had broken at once with the impact of the fall. Sam had been suffocating to death until someone had managed to get past the barrier and give his legs a good tug, to end it faster. 

Ross has to break off, to throw up. There’s little enough in his stomach. He vomits into the dirty basin of water. He has seen his fair share of violence, of blood and gore and death, but he will never forget seeing these two young men hang. 

Dwight clasps his shoulder. “I’m finished, anyway,” he says quietly. “I’ll get rid of the water.”

“I’ll find clean sheets,” Ross mutters. The shrouds they have on are dirty, makeshift, produced by some kind-meaning onlooker to the spectacle, once the bodies had been let down from the scaffold. Sam and Drake deserve better than that. More sheets can be bought and made easily enough, and he cannot see it as a waste of good linen, to give honest men a decent shroud to be buried in. It’s the least he can do. Julia had been buried in her nightdress and cap, a white, fragile little doll in the coffin. He had put the nails in himself; Dwight had offered, but Ross hadn’t been able to bear the idea of anyone but him sealing her up for her eternal rest. The least he could do then, as now.

He finds sheets in the linen cupboard upstairs, neatly folded. Demelza’s work. She’s no good at fancy work, never has been, but she can sew a seam and make a neat hem. And it’s fitting; Demelza’s sheets for Demelza’s brothers.

George will pay for this, he thinks savagely. George will pay for what he’s done this day. Basset had been on the verge of agreeing to reprieve the brothers until George had stepped in and whispered more poison in his ear.

He leans against the door of the cupboard and breathes. In and out, as Drake and Sam will never do again, to try to quell the nausea that rises once more. He wishes for a drink, but knows it will make everything worse. There’s no sign of Demelza yet. He can’t imagine where she is, but can’t help being grateful for the time she’s unknowingly granting him. At least she won’t have to do this for her brothers. He can do it for her. It won’t mitigate her anger, but he deserves that, and she does not deserve to have to shroud her beloved brothers.

He and Dwight have enough experience of sewing, from their military days, that creating simple shrouds proves no great difficulty. Once again Ross takes Sam, and leaves Drake for Dwight. Stitch after stitch, he draws the sheet around the body and seals it. He includes the head – Demelza should not see the bruised, swollen shape of her brother’s face. 

“Come and eat something,” Dwight insists, when they have finished and there is no more that can be done. It’s nearly time for the children’s supper, or perhaps they’ve had it already. Though Ross supposes they have been kept busy in the kitchen, they will still know something is amiss. They will know their papa is here and upset, and their mama is absent. He has to face them, but he can’t tell them what’s happened. Not yet. Not before Demelza, who is still not here. He cannot imagine where she is, and despite Dwight’s reassurances earlier he still wonders if she has gone back to Tregothnan, or if she and Hugh have gone elsewhere, together. He doesn’t know what, precisely, she feels for Hugh, but he knows she has not been happy, these past few weeks. He’s tried to be patient, to be gentle with her, to love her sincerely and tenderly, but sometimes a shadow has come between them. Before the hanging, he’d entertained hopes that perhaps this visit would close a chapter for her. Now…now all his doubts and dark thoughts have sprung back into his mind, and he cannot escape them.

“Ross,” Dwight says patiently. “You must eat.” Ross looks at him, and then looks for a long while at the two covered figures lying on the parlour table. Finally he nods, and lets Dwight steer him from parlour to kitchen.

Demelza sometimes calls Jeremy her comfort, and he is a comfort to Ross now. The little boy climbs into Ross’s lap and rests his head on Ross’s shoulder while Prudie moves around the kitchen putting together two plates of food. Ross holds his son close and lets himself rest, just for a few moments. Clowance is burbling to herself, still stacking and restacking lumps of pastry that must be far too overworked, now, to be of any use in cooking. Dwight stands beside the window, staring out at the farmyard. Prudie brings him a plate, and he eats there, like a soldier on watch. Ross picks at the bread and cheese Prudie offers him, and tastes nothing of the little he manages.

“Papa, does your tummy hurt?” Jeremy asks, patting Ross’s stomach. “Do you need Mama to kiss it better? Like for me?”

“No, Jeremy, my tummy is fine,” Ross says, and makes an effort to eat a little more. It lands like a lead weight in his stomach, but Jeremy seems happier, so perhaps it’s worth it. Still no Demelza. The day is wearing on; soon enough it will be dark. It’s time for the children to be washed and put to bed, something she dislikes missing, but she isn’t here and Ross can’t summon enough composure to do it himself. He sends them upstairs with Prudie instead, and goes to the parlour to stand vigil. 

“Could she have gone to Sawle, do you think?” Dwight asks as he lights the candles. “If somebody saw her returning home and needed her…” He trails off. Ross shrugs his shoulders. It could have happened easily enough. Demelza is often in demand among the women and children in the district. But if she’d gone to Sawle she would hear about her brothers, and surely if she heard she would come straight home, to discover the truth – to berate Ross for not telling her, to _hate_ him for not telling her. 

“I’ll kill George for this,” he says into the silence. Dwight inhales, but then decides not to speak. Ross doesn’t look at him. He can’t so much as glance away from the two white-wrapped bodies, as if somehow they might disappear if he stops looking. A foolish notion, but one that he cannot shake off. “Basset was going to yield, but then George spoke to him,” he adds. “I thought I could save them, I thought…but George…”

“Ross, nobody – least of all me – could blame you for being angry with George,” Dwight says slowly, carefully. “He is wholly without conscience. But –,”

“But?”

“But Demelza needs you,” Dwight reminds him. “She will need you, Ross, and if you go haring off after George, one way or another, she’ll lose you.” Ross scowls. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. Demelza won’t want me, he thinks, not after this, this is a betrayal, and she’ll see it as a betrayal, and it will drive her from me. “Do you imagine George isn’t anticipating some retaliation?” Dwight presses. “Do you think Tom Harry and a group of thugs won’t be waiting for you? And the law would be on his side.”

“Hang the law,” Ross snaps, viciously. Then he closes his eyes. What a foolish choice of words. A slip of the tongue. Hang the law, indeed. 

And then, finally – both finally and far too soon – Ross hears the front door open. He hears slow footsteps on the flagstones. He gulps in air and goes to meet her. He has done many hard things in his life. He has watched his first love marry other men. He has held his daughter as she breathed her last. He has killed men and he has known despair and he has tried to face it all head-on. He has not always succeeded. He must now. He _must_. When Julia died, Ross had been the one to tell Demelza, and he cannot leave it for somebody else to tell her of these deaths. She will detest him for it, but he will bear the weight of that on his shoulders and will not shirk the responsibility of admitting his utter and total failure to save her brothers.

“Ross,” she greets. “I thought you might stop in town.” Her eyes are dry and clear. There’s no evidence of tears, no grief in her expression or voice, so she doesn’t know. She can’t know. And whatever happened at Tregothnan hasn’t driven her to anguish, either – she looks tired, and not quite happy, but not desperately miserable, as he’d half-feared she might be, this morning when he’d seen her off, before the rest of the day had driven all thoughts of Hugh Armitage from his mind.

“Demelza,” he says. His voice sounds strange, unnatural. “Demelza, I must tell you…there was a hanging.”

Demelza pauses in the act of unbuttoning her coat. “Oh, God,” she murmurs, clearly sickened. “Who was it?”

“There were three sentenced,” Ross manages. “Jago Martin – and – Demelza…” He can’t say it. He can’t force the words out. Demelza waits, but he can’t speak. He watches as suspicion begins to creep into her expression.

“Ross,” she says, “who – who was it?” He shakes his head. Coward, he thinks to himself, you damned coward. Demelza starts forward, knocks against him as she tries to move past him and into the parlour. He manages to catch hold of her arm. He is aware of Dwight behind him, in the doorway to the parlour, and knows that even if Demelza breaks free from him, Dwight will stop her. She’s fierce and strong, but no match for either of them. “Ross,” she rasps. “Ross, let me – where are – let me go –,”

“Demelza –,”

“ – please,” she’s begging, “please, no –,”

“They were convicted of assault and theft,” Ross tells her. “I went to Sir Francis – and the hanging – I tried to stop it, you must believe me, I – ,”

“No, you’re lying – you’re _lying_!”

Ross can’t hold her. Her arm slips from his grasp and she pushes past him. Dwight steps aside without a protest, then follows her into the parlour. Ross stands alone in the hall, despising himself. Despising himself but _loathing_ George, with every fibre of his being. Demelza is crying: loud, choking sobs. Ross must go to her, he knows he must – he _wants_ to – but he knows how she will look at him, and he is afraid of it.

He steels himself. Fear has no place here. She will be angry with him, she may hate him, but he must bear it. It’s no more than he deserves. He has failed to save her brothers, just as years ago he failed to save Jim Carter. His past mistakes made new again. He’d tried, this time – he’d tried to go to Basset in private, tried to play the game, and he’d failed.

He has failed her. He deserves her anger. He goes into the parlour and shuts the door.


End file.
